Zach Gifford

Back in the second or third week of Spring Training, I noticed something different about Jose Martinez.
I'd be willing to be José Martinez has bought in on the fly ball revolution. Looks like he does everything he can to get the ball lofted
— Zach Gifford (@zjgifford) March 8, 2017
I had

Over the next week, The Redbird Daily writers will be participating in a few roundtable discussions on the upcoming Major League Baseball season. We would love for you to join the discussion by commenting below with your picks! Today we will tackle the American League.
American League West
Kyle Reis - ASTROS

Kolten Wong broke Cardinals Twitter on Sunday when he said he’d rather be traded from the St. Louis Cardinals than platoon at second base, according to Ben Frederickson. While he later backed off those comments a bit, the damage was already done.
I’m no stranger to camp that doesn’t believe in

One of the biggest arguments for the St. Louis Cardinals to extend Yadier Molina is the “intangible value” he brings to the club, especially in his management of the pitching staff. I’ve often wondered if there is a way to quantify this intangible value. Today, I set out to do

On Tuesday, I looked at catch probability to evaluate the St. Louis Cardinals outfield. Using CPR+, I determined that Statcast was significantly lower on the Cardinals outfield than DRS and UZR.
At that time, however, I made no adjustments for positioning. For example, while Piscotty is 11% below average (89 CPR+)

A couple weeks ago, Statcast unveiled a new catch probability statistic. While this metric is currently only used for outfielders (it will be expanded to infielders soon), it gives us a new way to evaluate players defensively.
The main metrics used in defensive evaluation are Ultimate Zone Rating (UZR) and Defensive

Earlier this week on Viva El Birdos, Alex (@alexcards79) dug up exactly how bad the 2016 St. Louis Cardinals were in the first inning. In short, the Cardinals starting staff had an ERA of 5.33 in the first inning, better than only Reds and Braves in the NL. The offense

While the World Baseball Classic is providing us an early, exciting taste of competitive baseball, the headlines keep flowing out of Spring Training. A few of the earliest St. Louis Cardinals storylines have died down: we’re over Matt Adams weight loss, and even he is apparently over his new stance.

On Wednesday, Travis Sawchik of FanGraphs wondered if pace is value-adding skill for pitchers. His analysis focused on Mark Buerhle, in the news after the White Sox announced they will retire his number. Travis suggested that maybe by working quickly and trusting his catcher, Buerhle “was better able to focus

Over the course of the offseason, most St. Louis Cardinals fans clamored for a fourth outfielder. The recent signing of international free agent Adolis Garcia brought the backup outfielder debate up again, and the hope is that he can compete for a spot.
More realistically, though, Garcia will start the year